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Carthian Overview
Carthian Transition documents ' I) Individualists, Collectivists, and the Middle of the Road: a comparison and contrast a. Carthians as a whole i. Carthians overall believe that kindred social systems should modernize to include broader bases of power than traditional structure.[1] ii. Carthians want to succeed themselves more than they want others to fail.[2] iii. Four elements for Carthians: Carthians are modern, secular explorers of mortal ideas,[3] and that they come from, and influence, all walks of life.[4] iv. Carthians question their direction. “There is one question that almost every Carthian vampire asks himself on a regular basis: ''is the covenant performing its intended function?”[5] The answer depends on what the individual Carthian believes the function of the covenant to be, which is related to their faction, position, mission, and stance. v. The four beliefs that all Carthians have in common- because if you do not have these, then you are just not part of the Movement, per canon[6]- are: 1. Tolerance within reason 2. Collective action[7] 3. Individual rights 4. The duty to be a complete being vi. The factions differentiate themselves based on whether they give precedence to Collection action (Collectivists), Individual rights (Individualists), or balance the two (Middle of the Road). vii. Position and mission: All Carthians have a position and mission. “Position is what you believe and that’s important. But it’s hollow without mission. Mission is what you do.”[8] Whether your PC works towards his mission alone or with a group for the overall good of the Movement is linked to his faction- Individualists for the former method, Collectivists for the latter. viii. Stance: Activist vs. Progressive. “Instead of a mass, violent uprising of the type the activists favor, progressives pursue small, additive changes that build up over time.”[9] For your character, consider if you favor evolution or revolution. ix. Individualist vs Collectivist vs other Covenants: The disagreements between Individualists and Collectivists are minor compared to the Carthians differences with more traditional covenants, since those covenants expect a very hierarchical “I know better than you, so do as I say.” mindset. If other PC’s of more traditional covenants are acting egalitarian, then they are deviating from canon and should favor the Movement and expect censure from their superiors. (For example, see the outlawing of Carthian slang by Invictus princes, p. 49.) “Acceptance and promotion of the secular modernist message of the Movement, with its compelling “power-to-the-people” base are the most obvious marks of a true Carthian, whether he declares himself or not.”[10] x. The Myrmidon: As the most important position in the Movement,[11] the faction of the Myrmidon affects Carthians in the city. Each Myrmidon is likely to try to shape negotiations to a fair result, but what the Myrmidon considers “fair” will be related to her belief about the primacy of individual rights vis-à-vis collective action. b. Individualists i. Structure 1. Typical Clan roles (see Carthians, pp. 55-62) a. - Auspex, Investigation and Academics (pp. 55-6) b. - Obfuscate, Celerity, Stealth and Larceny (pp. 59-60) c. - Protean, Animalism, Athletics and Survival (pp. 60-1) 2. Advancement: Individualists rarely attain high position of Status within the Carthian Movement.[12] While there are many Individualists, they are handicapped by their inability to make large changes that draw attention and accolades as a “solo.” Unless the solo has unique, very valuable abilities, most will cap out at Carthian Status 2 to 3. 3. The rare exception- a high Status Individualist- is a long shot. Such an Individualist has succeeded at a massive task that benefited the Movement as a whole with minimal assistance, and that garners respect. However, 19 out of 20 times, those attempts to do big things with minimal assistance fail. The Individualist, undeterred, keeps trying, but the odds are against him. 4. Solipsists and other Cultists of Self are almost always Individualists. If one cannot be sure about the existence of others, one cannot base one’s unlife on acting with them. 5. Bodhisatcracy are typically Individualists, more devoted to their enlightenment than to the collective good of the Movement 6. Sabotage artists are Individualists, but may fake other factions. They are uncommon in the global Chronicle, because our social game relies on players interacting to have fun. Playing a PC that tries to make group actions a waste of time usually produces frustration for the player (as group actions continue to succeed) or for other players (as their actions repeatedly fail). Consult with your Storyteller about the overall good of the game before bringing in a sabotage artist PC. ii. Norms/Ideals 1. Most Individualist of the Carthian forms of government: Communal Democracy. The ability to be as involved, or as uninvolved, as one chooses suits the Individualist well. In communal democracy, “All citizens should have equal opportunity to influence the policy of the Movement, but those who do not wish to sacrifice their time and energy to the governing of the domain should be free to withdraw themselves from electoral decisions. Kindred should be empowered to participate without obligation, and they should benefit from peaceful and prosperous co-existence.”[13] iii. RP Guidelines: 1. Maintain a clear focus on your primary goal. Consider each gathering a chance to advance your personal mission in some way. Enter each game with an idea of some result that would benefit your overall goal, and have an idea of how to advance that result. For optimal challenge, ensure that the result you want will not sit well with at least one other PC. 2. Focus on your personal mission with minimal reliance on the Carthians as a whole. Be prepared to ask for little from your fellows, because you will typically offer them little. You are a “solo”, doing your own thing and asking mainly to be left alone to pursue your own goals without restriction or external demands.[14] You are smart enough to know that this will never entirely be the case, but you seek to keep demands on you to a minimum, which means being ready to work alone. 3. Build for a well-rounded character. As an Individualist, you cannot expect others to help you, since you plan to offer little help in return. Your sheet will typically have many one-dot skills necessary for night-to-night life, such as Computers, Academics, Stealth, Survival (rural) or Streetwise (urban), and Drive, even if those are unrelated to your primary goal. 4. Relationship with Acolytes: Smart Individualists have learned that those who follow the Crone feel a need for tribulation and suffering.[15] As an Individualist, you can offer them little (and will offer them less) compared to a Collectivist group or a more traditionally organized coterie from another covenant. The fact that you offer little may be an attraction for Acolytes who see helping you as a net loss and a tribulation. You have learned to leverage that to carefully offer enough to be worthwhile, but not so much a to make the unlife of your Acolyte ally too easy. c. Collectivists i. Structure 1. Typical Clan roles (see Carthians, pp. 55-62) a. Dominate, Intimidate, and Persuasion (pp. 56-7) b. Majesty, Performance and Subterfuge (pp. 57-8) c. Nightmare, Intimidation, and Crafts (pp. 58-9) d. Vigor, Resilience, Brawl and Weaponry (pp. 61-2) 2. Collectivists trade purity of vision for effectiveness. “To Collectivists, the core of their Requiems is large-scale political accomplishment.”[16], but “The inevitable weakness to collectivizing individuals is a dilution of purpose.”[17] 3. “True-blue Collectivists seemingly make up a minority of the covenant of the covenant, but almost every real Collectivist has a position of some authority, or at least an official title, rank, duty or responsibility. They’re not always liked or even respected, but they are always connected.” [18] Collectivists work together to create effects, resulting in a rise in Status. Almost all Status 4 or 5 Carthians are Collectivist. 4. The AOA are broadly Collectivist, working as a whole for a purpose they see as benefiting the Movement, all kindred, and all humans. Despite their small size (the AOA group of four to five mentioned on p. 148 is about as large as an AOA group can get without being discovered and destroyed), the AOA thinks in a Collectivist mindset. Subtle AOA members do not firebomb- they use a variety of creative methods to discourage other kindred from buying Merits based on humans, such as Allies, Contacts, Herd, Retainers, and Staff. ii. Norms/Ideals: “What the Movement demands is that you do your part, that you help others do their part and that you mean it. Or if you don’t mean it, at least put up a good façade.”[19] 1. Most Collectivist Carthian government style: Pure Democracy. Collectivists favor the opportunity to act together. While they are aware that the Invictus’ fealty chains can create a strong voting bloc to oppose their initiatives under Pure Democracy,[20] some canny Collectivists use that danger to keep local Carthians unified. iii. RP Guidelines 1. Give much, expect much. Collectivists see themselves as pragmatic, in that the only way to make real change is by working together as a Movement.[21] Their cooperation expectations extend well beyond a coterie. They are willing to give much, and expect much in return. They often create structures, either personally keeping a “tally sheet” of what they have done for the Movement relative to what others have offered.[22] Some groups of Collectivists even formalize these tallies and use them to advance in Status. 2. Collectivists often disdain Individualists as impractical, thinking that “solos, by pledging themselves fixedly to the purest form of their beliefs, by settling for nothing less than 100 percent, wind up with zero when they could have gotten 30%, or 50% or 95%. But rather than roll up their sleeves and get dirty and compromise, they’d rather stay unstained — and impotent.”[23] 3. Specialize. Collectivists rely on others, and your play and sheet should reflect that concept. This does not mean to over-specialize to the point that the PC cannot take care of life on a nightly basis without a team- basic activities like feeding, finding shelter and so on cannot be ignored. Beyond that, though, feel free to have notable gaps in capability, and play those gaps to your character’s detriment to create interesting challenges of either getting help or trying to do something alone lacking both desire and training to handle it without help. 4. Be open, and ask for help. “A common Carthian precept is “The fear of showing weakness is, itself, a debilitating weakness.”[24] As a Collectivist, admit to your brethren when you goof, know that the Movement doesn’t punish mistakes the way other covenants do, and work with other Carthians to recover. It’s often easier to correct if admitted early, rather than trying to cover up a problem that then only grows. In return, don’t punish or degrade your fellow Carthians when they make mistakes; simply help them fix the problem and learn from the mistake for next time. d. Middle of the Road i. Structure: Middle of the Road, as a “non-faction”, has no structure. 1. The Oppositionists[25] are typically Middle of the Road, preferring to operate as a team with internal goals (in an Individualist way comparable to a Bodhisatcracy), but also offer their skills to the Movement as a whole in exchange for other Carthians protecting their freedom to enjoy their activities. ii. Norms/Ideals: Middle of the Road characters are defined by an absence, rather than the presence of norms and ideals. They are middle of the road simply because they are neither Individualists nor Collectivists. iii. RP Guidelines: Middle of the Road is likely the easiest position to play on a case-by-case, seen as a more pragmatic response to the Danse Macabre than the more rigid ideologies of Individualism or Collectivism. It lacks a unifying precept, though, which can result in inconsistency over time. II) Night Doctors a. Structure: i. The Night Doctors have no overarching structure. They must remain, very secretive even by kindred standards.[26] Their experiments would make many Ordo Dracul ill, and while they consider what they learn worth the price, it is a grisly price. Known Night Doctors are almost never welcomed by Princes. Because of the necessary secrecy, Night Doctors cannot organize beyond four to five members. It is simply too dangerous, and too easy to be caught if many kindred know. Members refer to one another by “Doctor” and an initial. Very few know another member as anything other than “Doctor N.” or similar title. ii. When Night Doctors meet, it is a brief meeting of a small cell for a singular event. Standard practice is for one member of a Night Doctor coterie to meet with a handful of like-minded colleagues when necessary. However, “dead drops”, obtuse medical articles with oblique references, and other unattributable means of sharing information are more common. iii. Note of caution: Night Doctors who reveal themselves to non-Night Doctors are typically treated like the "doctors" of Auschwitz. Any kindred with a shred of Humanity wants nothing to do with these monsters. Think of them as akin to the way the average person views a hit man- you might need one if things get really, really bad, but you never want to just be friends with one. Princes who are aware of Night Doctors in their city are prone to Blood Hunt them, or at least exile them, as a danger to both the kindred of the city and to the Masquerade. b. Norms/Ideals i. Position: Understanding the physiology of the Kindred is the key to alleviating the burdens of the condition without recourse to other occult energies, which inevitably come with their own complications.[27] ii. Mission: Unlock the secrets of Kindred biology (which some cells refer to as “thanatology”or “demi-thanatology” to differentiate between studies on the living) through experiments with Vitae, Kindred, ghouls and mortals.[28] iii. While many Night Doctors would prefer to operate as Collectivists, the need for secrecy almost always forces them to act as Individualists. c. RP Guidelines: i. Profession and skills: Night Doctors contain a high percentage of actual MDs. Other members are Embraced nurses, physical therapists and biologists. A meaningful percentage of Night Doctors had no medical training as mortals, but commenced studies during their Requiem. ii. Attributes: As a result, almost all Night Doctors are primarily Mental characters, with good Dexterity as their main physical attribute. iii. Ethics and Humanity: Some Night Doctor coteries maintain mortal medical ethics and forbid experimentation without informed consent from the subject. For most coteries, however, the value of the knowledge outweighs any one Requiem, especially the Requiem of a rival.[29] However, even Night Doctors avoid diablerie as one of the few crimes that even Carthians will punish with immediate Final Death.[30] III) Paranormal Phenomena Investigations Bureau (PPIB) a. Rules: Entry into the PPIB requires High approval, but approved PPIB characters also receive one High (or lower) approval Occult specialization as part of the application. This specialization still costs XP, but the application for the Occult specialization is consolidated within the PPIB application. Players seeking to have their characters join the PPIB must also have at least two existing PPIB members vouch for the PC as capable. The application will list the sponsoring PC's and the Occult specialization that will be obtained upon approval of the application. b. General information: PPIB understand that there are stranger things in the World of Darkness than vampires. This drives them to do horrific things in pursuit of that knowledge, especially given that they lack many of the occult advantages some other Covenants enjoy. This led the PPIB to ingratiate themselves with the Nazis in 1930's and 40's Germany, for example. After the fall of the Third Reich, these committees disbanded, but their intellectual successors have begun to resurface lately. A top team specializing in ghosts is alleged to have resolved over 100 hauntings, but far more common are imitator teams who have faked hauntings only to claim the credit for resolving them. Most PPIB teams are viewed with suspicion or derision as "ghostbusters." Only a few earn the respect of their brethren, and that respect is typically earned by losing Bureau members. Only paranormal phenomena that cause Final Death (or something equally grave, such as a significant breach of the Masquerade) are universally considered serious enough to merit respect for the PPIB who deal with them. c. Structure beyond local: Each PPIB team operates independently. There is no overarching structure to the PPIB. That said, PPIB cells do communicate, and those with a good reputation become known and respected. Those who frequently fail, or who are revealed as frauds, are dropped from communication and left to fend for themselves. Frauds also often discover that their con games become a major subject of gossip among Harpies, resulting in lower Status. This is particularly problematic for the majority of PPIB members who rely on good relationships with other Covenants to gather data for their research agenda. d. Local structure: Each PPIB team includes Field Researchers and Analysts. Some teams rotate who performs which duties; others keep to their role indefinitely. More than five members per role per team is considered to be less than ideal, slowing communication and understanding. The work of large groups also dilutes the credit when a breakthrough occurs, and few vampires want to have less than 10% of the spotlight when the spotlight is so rare. Teams are often comprised of both kindred and ghouls, with analysts particularly prone to keep ghouls, and the addition of ghouls to a large team makes it even more unwieldy. Teams may work very closely together, at the risk of not checking each others' work closely enough; or teams may be internally antagonistic, which results in thorough checks on one another's work, but also issues when teamwork is required. Team leaders are typical for field units in which decisions are required rapidly, but analysts often operate by direct democracy. Even among field units, it's unusual for the field leader to be chosen by means other than election; leaders are often elected based on their superior specialized knowledge for a given set of operations. After those operations, a new leader is likely to be elected, if another member is better suited to the next set of operations. e. Norms and Ideals: Learn more about other supernatural beings. Seek to use your research into other supernatural beings to improve the vampiric condition. Reject the idea that it is necessary to make deals with supernaturals to learn; those deals come with too many unexpected "strings" attached. Instead, use pure science, not arcane pseudo-science, to advance your research. Maintain knowledge through excellent recording and storage of those records. Be an expert in your field, an academician and scientist, and accept nothing less than excellence. f. RP Guidelines: Do not give in to fear, but instead cautiously study, even though it involves great risk. Ignore the derision and do not try to prove yourself to the ignorant frequently. Complete major treatises and release those when you have major milestones in your research. Carry yourself professionally, and dress accordingly. Be cautious and patient; you are immortal, and the other supernaturals you investigate have abilities you don't understand. Paranoia is a survival trait for you. Recognize that the more you know, the more the World of Darkness will target you. ---- [1] Carthians, p. 12 [2] Ibid [3] As per the Vivacity section on Carthians, p. 48, it is common for Carthian PC’s to receive situational bonuses to Humanity checks at the presiding ST’s discretion, based on their frequent contact with humans, unlike other Covenants that maintain either minimal human contact, or think of humans as lesser beings, functionaries, or sheep. [4] Carthians, pp. 13-14 [5] Carthians, p. 25 [6] Carthians, pp. 30-31 [7] Note that, per both p. 31 and p. 53, individuals can be ejected from the Carthian Movement. '''To support this setting element, the rules must reflect that to be Carthian, one must belong to a local Movement group. If ejected, and not accepted as part of another Carthian group, the PC is ejected from the Covenant. Local groups may be pressured to eject unpopular members and/or not accept members ejected from other local groups, but if at least one local group of Carthians accepts the individual, (s)he remains a Carthian. [8] Carthians, p. 34 [9] Carthians, p. 39 [10] Carthians, p. 52. The section goes on to describe how another kindred would typically come to the Carthian view: “Sooner or later, usually provoked by a perceived injustice, she begins to consider how populism could apply to her own covenant. She might begin to believe that a Bishop should listen to and learn from his own flock just as much as he preaches to them, or that her Ordo Dracul instructors are withholding information from her unfairly, and that she should be free to learn as she chooses. An Invictus neonate might note that his Guild Meister would benefit from the modern tools employed by mortal craftsmen, and wonder why the Meister is so resistant to the suggestion.” [11] Carthians, p. 62 [12] Carthians, p. 129 [13] Carthians, p. 96 [14] Carthians, p. 128 [15] Carthians, p. 108 [16] Carthians, p. 130 [17] Ibid [18] Carthians, p. 130 [19] Carthians, p. 86 [20] Carthians, p. 107 [21] Carthians, pp. 129-130 [22] Carthians, p. 39 [23] Carthians, pp. 129-130 [24] Carthians, p. 31 [25] Carthians, p. 149 [26] Carthians, p. 33 [27] Ibid [28] Carthians, pp. 34-35 [29] Carthians, pp. 34-35 [30] Carthians, p. 66